Increased social anhedonia and reduced helping behaviour in young people with high depressive symptomatology
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Social anhedonia, the decreased enjoyment of pleasant social experiences, is associated with depression. However, whether social anhedonia in depression affects prosocial behaviours is unclear. The current study aimed to examine how high levels of depressive symptomatology in young people affect responses to usually rewarding social situations, including helping behaviour. METHODS: =20; LD). In a social emotion task (SET), participants were presented with social scenarios and asked to rate their expected emotional responses. Subsequently, participants' helping behaviour was measured by dropping a pile of papers near them and recording their responses. Lastly, participants completed the SET again. RESULTS: The SET at time 1 revealed that HD individuals reported significantly stronger negative (p<.001) and weaker positive (p<.05) emotional responses to social situations than LD subjects. Additionally, all participants showed a significant increase in positive responses (p<.05) on the SET between time 1 and time 2. Moreover, HD subjects were less likely to engage in actual helping behaviour than LD participants. LIMITATIONS: Limitations of the study are that only females were tested and that no psychiatric screening interview was conducted. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that young females with high levels of depression symptoms expect to respond less positively to social situations and engage less in helping behaviour compared to those with low depressive symptomatology. Social anhedonia in depression may thus contribute to decreased engagement in rewarding social situations. This, in turn, may lead to social withdrawal and might maintain depression symptoms though a lack of exposure to positive social feedback.
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Anticipation of a less positive response to social situations is reported in females from the general population with high levels of depressive symptoms compared to those with low depressive symptoms.
“Anticipation of a less positive response to social situations is reported in females, from the general population, with high levels of depressive symptoms compared to those with low depressive symptoms (75).”
From A transdiagnostic perspective on social anhedonia (2019) · cites this paper as [75]
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A transdiagnostic perspective on social anhedonia
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- Authors
- Setterfield, M., Walsh, M., Frey, A.-L., & McCabe, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Reading (GB)
- Corresponding author
- McCabe, Ciara
- Venue
- Journal of Affective Disorders
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-11
- Volume
- 205
- Pages
- 372-377
- ISSN
- 0165-0327 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2514547532
- Cited by
- 48
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 4.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Affective Disorders (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CentAUR (University of Reading) (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Reading
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
- Keywords
- social anhedonia, depressive symptoms, helping behavior, prosocial behavior, youth, social withdrawal, adolescent girls, depression maintenance
- MeSH terms
- Depression, Emotions, Female, Helping Behavior, Humans, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Social Behavior, Young Adult, Anhedonia
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